Mortality
by Ryuutsu Seishin Hime no Argh
Summary: Legs crushed and ethos shattered, Gaara stagnates in the hospital at Konoha, hovering over the abyss. A character study. Finished.
1. Part I

_AN: A bit of Gaara character introspection that went farther than I thought it would. I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed exploring this character, and I hope you enjoy reading the result. Spoilers through Gaara's arc in Shippuuden. Possibly Gaara x Naruto if you squint _really_ hard. Mostly just a friendship. _

_This is Part I of four. Reviews are greatly appreciated._

* * *

**Mortality**

What shocked him was the reality of his own death.

The horror of killing had abandoned him a long, long time ago. He saw no God, no power, no hope of heaven in the eyes of the dying, when the inner light faded and all that was left was dull and blank. He saw nothing at all.

* * *

Part I

There was a smell to Konoha that was vastly different from the desert. The desert smelled like wind, like burning, like wild animals: a fierce smell, terrible and joyful. Konoha smelled like leaves and sunlight, like warmth. He would never confuse the two, not if he went blind and deaf and dumb, not in a thousand years.

Gaara opened his eyes, knowing already where he would find himself.

A rusted fan revolved slowly overhead, creaking softly. The window was wide open. He looked at it, feeling the warm summer wind on his face and wondering how it was that Konoha slept safely with its windows thrown open to the sun and the sky and the birds, and all the creatures that lurked in the shadows. In the desert he would have shut the window; he would have closed and barred it, and made sure everyone beneath him was closed and barred, hidden away, protected.

He loved the desert and its sands that shifted like the sea, its fierce winds and terrible storms. Nothing was still in the desert, nothing was ever entirely safe.

But Konoha…Konoha was still, and bright, and beautiful.

It was a near-cloudless day, and there was a tree outside his window, deep green against the blue sky, that swayed back and forth, gently, with the shifting of the breeze. He watched it, letting the sight of it draw his mind away from the pain in his legs. He didn't want to look at them, and there were sheets and a white hospital yukata covering him, sparing him that unpleasantness, at least. They felt stiff and bulky, wound with bandages, no doubt, and there was an aching throb to them where there should have been agony, as though the worst of the pain could not quite make it to his mind. Drugs, probably. He watched the tree.

He thought some time had passed, though he wasn't sure, when the door opened and someone entered. He looked and saw a girl, a woman, someone familiar to him, and he tried to remember her name. He didn't know her, not really, but he did know her face, because she was often with him.

"Haruno Sakura," he said slowly.

"How are you feeling?" she asked. She hovered in the space between his bed and the door, neither close nor far, and he remembered after a moment that she was a medic, probably meant to attend to him, which meant that she would have to touch him.

He never had learned how to soften his features at will, and it was probably the same stare he gave to nearly everyone that he fixed her with now, but he twitched his fingers, a little gesture that was almost a beckon: _It's all right. Do what you need to do._

It seemed to work. Sakura came forward and lifted his wrist carefully, turning it over and feeling for his pulse. He watched her impartially and said in answer to her question, "I can't move."

"You won't for some time," Sakura said, not unsympathetically, but distant now, in her element. "You nearly died. You're still badly injured, so what you need to do now is stay in that bed and rest."

He sensed that she was uncomfortable giving him orders, and there was something else, some shiftiness on her part that made him think that she was neglecting to tell him something serious. He didn't pursue it. "What happened to my squad?"

Sakura hesitated, her fingers still over his pulse. "They're all dead."

He closed his eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said, lowering his wrist to his side. "Naruto and I tried to get there in time…we were too late."

He opened his eyes and looked at her again. "Why did you bring me to Konoha?"

She appeared startled by the question. "It was Naruto's idea," she said after a moment, as though that explained everything, and in a way it did.

He knew that Sunagakure would be looked after in his absence, and it didn't bother him, not really. It bothered him to be here. Everything was too soft, too bright, too peaceful. He wanted darkness and solitude, a place where he could be still and contemplate the abyss. Not sunlight. Not trees.

"Where is he?"

The question was out of his mouth before he even realized he had spoken, and it hung in the air between them. He didn't expect Sakura to understand, but she did. She looked at him and said simply, "With Hokage-sama. He'll come later."

That was too much to contemplate at the moment. Gaara looked at the ceiling and watched the slow revolutions of the old fan while Sakura did what she needed to do, seating herself by his legs and folding the sheets up onto his torso. He sucked in his breath the first time she touched him, but she was gentle and efficient, with a coolness in her hands that sank into his legs and numbed the initial agony. The absence of pain was a curious thing. He took no notice of it day to day, but now it was a huge and tangible presence, to be embraced with open arms.

The process of changing his bandages was slow and terrible, and he could not look, but he said, "Thank you," when Sakura was done so she wouldn't be afraid.

She nodded and looked reassured. "Do you want anything for the pain?"

"No."

"Can I get you something to eat?"

"No."

She pursed her lips. "I'm bringing some food later. You need to eat."

He met her eyes. She swallowed but did not look away.

"All right," he said at last.

"Rest now," she told him, and she left.

He allowed his head to sink back onto the pillow. This thing, this great hurt that he had inflicted so many times on so many people, it was his now, it was here with him, if he would see it. He wouldn't. He watched the fan turning over his head, the scudding of clouds across the blue sky, the tree swaying back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

* * *

In the balmy evening Gaara slept, but he woke when Naruto came. Naruto, too, had a huge and tangible presence, an unmistakable one. He would have woken for anyone, friend or foe, but blindly, unknowing, in that vulnerable moment. With Naruto, he knew. That he could not was impossible.

Naruto was sitting on the windowsill, looking him over. It occurred to Gaara that he had probably come up by climbing the tree, which was such an absurd and laughable idea that he very nearly smiled.

"Ah! Gaara! You're awake!" The room which had been so still and peaceful in the dark of the night now seemed bright and loud and small, or maybe it was simply Naruto who was too big. "Are you feeling better? You look better. It's been five days, did you know that?"

He had not.

"We thought you were going to die, but old lady Tsunade came and she did something and you started getting better," Naruto went on enthusiastically. "Then she made me leave for a mission—Sakura-chan said it was just so I wouldn't hang around the hospital and disturb you, which isn't fair because old lady Tsunade let Sakura-chan watch you, but I guess that's because she's a medical-nin."

Listening to Naruto, Gaara found, was exhausting. "I see."

"But you're awake now so it doesn't matter, though I'm still not supposed to bother you—oh, old lady Tsunade said to tell you that we sent a message to Suna and everything's fine there; Kankuro and Temari are looking after everyone and they want you to get better."

"Good," Gaara said absently.

"So it's all okay, and old lady Tsunade will help you and you'll get better." Naruto's voice abruptly lowered. "Though your squad…your squad's dead. We couldn't…"

"I know," Gaara said.

"We wanted to save them," Naruto said unhappily.

"I know."

"We almost couldn't save you."

"I know," Gaara said softly.

Naruto gazed at him, bereft of words for this brief moment, and Gaara gazed back. Looking at Naruto was like looking into a pool of clear water, and the reflection he saw there was painful and wonderful. He saw himself in Naruto's eyes more clearly than he ever had or ever would, and he was not horrible, not an abomination, not something to be feared, but human, and worthy, maybe, of being loved.

"You brought me to Konoha," Gaara said.

"Yep."

"Why?"

Naruto, too, appeared startled by the question. "Our hospital's better than yours," he said in his tactless way. "And old lady Tsunade's here, and—"

Gaara didn't hear the rest. That was the second time Naruto had mentioned Konoha's head. He had been right about what was wrong with him. Before she was ever Hokage, Tsunade had been a famous medical shinobi. A very effective one.

The abyss stretched out before him, and Gaara opened his eyes and faced it at last. He looked down at his legs.

It all appeared innocent enough. There was nothing to see underneath the white sheets, but he knew. The flesh of his legs was mangled, the bones crushed. He was crippled. He might never walk again. The peculiar irony of it was that it didn't matter, not really—he had the sand, and the sand would always carry him.

Naruto had gone silent as well. After a while he said, "Tsunade will fix you."

There was a seriousness in his voice, an earnestness in the way Naruto spoke his Hokage's name. Gaara envied him his faith.

"Maybe I deserve this," he said.

Naruto stared at him as though entirely affronted. "_Deserve_ it?"

"I've done the same to dozens of people," Gaara reminded him. "I did it to your friend. I would have done it to you."

Naruto waved that off. "You wouldn't do it _now_, would you?"

"To enemies. I would. I do."

"To protect people," Naruto said.

Gaara stared at him.

"Is that all it requires?" he said at last. "To make it right? Protecting someone?"

Naruto frowned, seeming to consider that for a moment.

"Well," he said, "maybe. I don't _want_ to hurt anyone, or kill anyone...but I'd do it, if I had to. For my friends. I don't _like_ it, but they're too important to me for me not to."

"A necessary evil," Gaara put in.

Naruto scratched his head. "I guess so." But he still frowned, as though dissatisfied with the entire conversation. "I want to _save_ people," he said at last.

Gaara understood that. "You will. You do. But I'm a murderer."

Naruto scowled at him. "You're _not."_

He didn't want to argue. "I'm not hiding from it," he said, and stopped. There was something in him that he wanted out of him, but it was bigger than words, bigger than his ability to express. He tried anyway. "People die when you kill them. It doesn't matter why you do it. Or what they did. That's all gone, and it's empty. And it lives inside you, that emptiness." He and Naruto knew so well about things living inside them. "I didn't understand. Even when I died, that time…and I've killed so many people. But I didn't understand. I was trying to protect myself. Even though I thought I knew what it means to kill." The warmth of the summer night seemed to have fled his little hospital room. Gaara closed his eyes. "There's nothing in death, Uzumaki Naruto. It's all empty."

He rarely spoke this much, and it had exhausted him now. He didn't want to open his eyes and look at Naruto, who would undoubtedly be regarding him with the same sort of wariness and fear that they all did—even Kankuro and Temari, a little—on the very rare occasions that he spoke of killing and death. The silence stretched on and on, horribly.

"Is it easier?" Naruto asked at last, his voice unusually quiet.

Gaara did look at him then, and he didn't see fear or even pity, no matter how hard he stared.

"I don't know," he admitted at last. "It's too soon. I wonder sometimes if I am dead, because I don't feel anything." His voice was soft. "That's an emptiness, too. I do feel things, Naruto. I did." He closed his eyes again and sighed. "I'm tired. I need to sleep."

He heard Naruto pad across the room and drag something toward the window with a soft metal scrape. It was the stool Sakura had used, he found, opening his eyes again. Naruto put it in front of the open window, between Gaara and the world outside, and sat on it.

"Go ahead," he told Gaara. "I'll stay."

Gaara didn't know if he liked that idea, but he was entirely too exhausted to think about it. The sleep that came over him was deep and heavy, tainted neither with his discomfort at being watched over or old, familiar fears of the monster that had once lived inside him. He fell into it without resisting, and slept, it seemed, forever.

* * *

To be continued.


	2. Part II

_AN: Raina1 and Madartiste, thank you for the reviews, they're much appreciated. This is the second part of four. Hope you enjoy._

* * *

Part II

The kunoichi of Konaha had a designated training ground near the hospital. Gaara realized it as, daily, the high-pitched shouts and seal commands of women shinobi at work filtered through the open window of his room. He spent long hours listening to the sounds of their training, their voices—the hesitance of the young girls from the Academy, who made their seals tentatively, almost fearfully, the eager determination of the genin, the deeper-voiced confidence of the chuunin and jounin. He thought he heard, once or twice, the commanding voice of the Hokage, Tsunade, mingling with the younger, higher voice of Haruno Sakura.

She continued to tend to him. Her discomfort with him seemed to ebb, and she eased into a serene bedside manner that was, in its way, reassuring. He knew it was simply part of her job to talk to him, to assure him that he would get well, but it drew him in nonetheless—her female warmth, her almost motherly comfort. No woman had ever offered him anything like it before, except for Temari, who was sparing in hers out of her worry of offending him. Sakura's treatment might have offended him at one time, but the seriousness of his injury and his gratitude for her willingness to treat him like any other patient led him to try to be as easy a presence on her as possible. He had no wish to scare her away. The sound of her voice carried him through the horrible process of changing his bandages; he latched onto it, not caring what she said as long as she said something, to focus his mind away from the pain.

That was how he ended up hearing the stories of her youth—her's and Naruto's, and Uchiha Sasuke's, from their time as a genin team together, before the Chuunin Exam. She tended to steer around the subject of the exam altogether, which was perfectly fine with Gaara—he had no desire to relive that time in his life. Better to hear about her life. She seemed happy to have a willing audience, and so he learned more about her and Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke than he ever thought he would, and it was all a little strange and alienating, how different their lives were from his, and how similar as well. Sakura's stories—probably without her realizing it—became more and more personal as the days went on.

"How could he leave it?" he asked her once as she sat on her stool by his legs.

Sakura stilled momentarily. "Who?"

"Uchiha." He stared rigidly at the ceiling. "You and Naruto—your village—everything. How could he leave it?" His voice was tight with pain. Sakura must have heard it, for she put her hands on him and murmured a jutsu, and coolness sank into his legs, numbing as much of the hurt as possible.

He thought she had forgotten his question in her concentration, but a few moments later she said softly, "I don't know. I suppose it wasn't…I suppose we weren't enough."

Gaara stared at the rusty fan on the ceiling, so he wouldn't have to see the mess of his legs as she unwrapped the last of the bandages. "He wasn't happy here?"

"I think maybe he was, sometimes," she said hesitantly. "But he couldn't stay happy, because his brother…his brother is still out there, somewhere. And nothing's enough, I guess, until he makes his brother suffer the way he has."

Gaara understood that, but still, if he had been born in a place like this…

"Naruto's determined to save him, and bring him back," Sakura said after a moment or two. "But I don't know…it's been so many years already…"

"He will," Gaara said. Sakura looked at him. "He'll save him. Naruto will."

Sakura reached for a fresh roll of bandages, her face contemplative. Slowly and carefully she wrapped his legs, taking care not to jostle them too much, and took a breath when she was finished.

"Do you want to go outside?"

Gaara blinked. "Outside?"

"Yeah. You've been in this room for nearly two weeks."

He hadn't realized it had been that long. "I can't walk," he pointed out.

"We have wheelchairs," she said.

Gaara looked at the window. The sky was clear and blue, and he could hear the shouts of the kunoichi at their training. "All right."

It took the help of Sakura and a second medic to get him into the wheelchair Sakura brought. They lifted him under the shoulders, trying to put as little weight on his legs as possible, but for all their care, agony shot up his legs the moment his feet touched the floor, like knives stabbing into his flesh. He gritted his teeth as they lowered him slowly into the chair, and only when he was seated did he let out his breath, feeling cold sweat on his face.

Sakura knelt beside him anxiously. "Are you all right? I'm sorry, we tried to be careful. Do you need something for pain?"

He breathed slowly, trying to relax. "I'm fine."

She put a hand on his shoulder, a gesture which surprised him into looking at her. She didn't flinch anymore when he met her eyes, and he was glad for that.

"You need to let me know if you're in pain," she told him seriously. "You don't have to suffer. It's pointless when I can help you."

"I'm fine," he said again, wanting to reassure her. "It was just for a moment."

She squeezed his shoulder and then let go, straightening. "Where do you want to go?"

He hesitated. "There are kunoichi training near the hospital." She nodded in confirmation. "I'd like to watch them."

She took him down to the training ground, which was nearly right below his window, separated from hospital grounds only by a wooden fence. They stayed close to the fence, out of the way of the trainees, watching them at work. Most of them seemed not to realize they were being observed, they were so absorbed in their training, but some of the younger girls took notice of them, or rather of him. They watched him when they thought he wasn't paying attention, and glanced away quickly when he looked at them, whispering to one another.

Sakura, standing at his side, noticed as well. "I think they think you're kind of cool," she told him with a grin.

"They do?"

She nodded. "Definitely. Girls like the quiet, mysterious type."

This was new and unexpected information. Not knowing what to make of it, he put it aside and watched the women his age and older, genin, chuunin, and jounin, their strength and grace as they went through training exercises, occasionally pairing off to spar. Watching them made him feel even more keenly the loss of the use of his legs. He had never fought like they fought, in that fierce, lithesome, leaping way, evading as much as attacking, taking advantage of a full range of motion.

Naruto believed his Hokage would repair him. For the first time since he'd woken in the little room in the hospital of Konoha, Gaara wanted him to be right.

"Do you think she can help me?" he asked Sakura, after a long pause.

She glanced at him. "Who?"

"Your Hokage."

Sakura seemed to consider it. "I think she can," she said at last. "It'll be very difficult, but she's the best of the best."

Gaara nodded, and watched the kunoichi. One young female, wearing a Konoha forehead protector to keep her black hair out of her face, was fiercely and repeatedly attacking a wooden dummy, sneaking glances at him in between rounds. She was long-limbed, dressed in black, moving quickly and with a supple grace.

"Your Hokage…she fixed him," he said slowly to Sakura. "Lee."

He saw her glance at him out of the corner of his eye. "Yeah, she did."

It was a difficult question to ask, but he had to say it. "Will she be…willing to fix me?"

Sakura didn't hesitate. "Of course she will. You're the Kazekage, and besides, you're in our care. A medical-nin doesn't turn her back on patients in need."

The black-haired kunoichi finished her exercises and gave Gaara one last, long glance before heading off the field. "Do you know that woman?" Gaara asked Sakura.

"Not personally. A lot of girls use these grounds."

Gaara watched the kunoichi's retreating back without speaking.

"I'd like her to try," he said at last.

"I'll bring her to you," Sakura promised.

* * *

Sakura kept her word; when she came the following day to tend to him, the Hokage was with her. "Sorry I haven't come sooner," Tsunade said by way of greeting, her hands planted on her hips as she surveyed him. "Sakura said you weren't ready 'til now."

He glanced at Sakura, who shrugged apologetically.

"Mind if I have a look?" Tsunade asked, grabbing Sakura's stool and planting it by his legs. "Try to hold still, all right? I'll be gentle."

He set his jaw as she began to unwrap the bandages, but she _was_ gentle, and her pain techniques were stronger than Sakura's. Tsunade gave a low whistle as she pulled away the last of the bandages. "Sheesh. You've made quite a mess of yourself, Gaara."

Tsunade, much like Naruto and Sakura, didn't bother addressing him by his formal title, which was more of a relief than anything else. It made him feel young, and unencumbered by the burden of responsibility for Sunagakure.

"Can you repair it?" he asked her quietly.

"I think I can. You're actually not as bad off as Lee was, believe it or not, and my techniques have improved since then. It's not going to be easy, though." Out of the corner of his eyes he saw a glow around her hands as she ran them over his legs. "I notice you're staring at the ceiling. Have you looked at them at all?"

"No," he admitted.

"Why not?"

"I don't want to see them."

"Gaara, look at me for a minute." He did, and she leaned forward on the stool, her elbows on her knees. "I need to know that you have a stake in having this surgery done. I know that sounds obvious, but the fact that you haven't even looked at your legs since they were injured worries me. You're not detached from them. They're a part of your body, and your body's been pretty badly mangled. If you don't _want_ this surgery to be done, if you don't face what's been done to you and truly _want_ it repaired, then the outcome isn't going to be very good no matter what I do. Do you understand?"

He nodded.

"It doesn't have to be today," she went on. "There's no infection; Sakura's been doing well with you. But we can't wait all summer. You need this surgery, soon, and you need to be ready for it." She got to her feet, stretching. "Sakura, you can finish up, right?"

Sakura nodded, coming forward to take her teacher's place. Tsunade looked down at Gaara for a few moments. "Think about what I said," she advised him. "And let me know when you're ready."

* * *

That evening was mild and cooler than the day, a warm summer breeze coming through the window, carrying on it the scratchy voices of cicadas. Gaara listened to the rustling of the tree outside his window and watched as the sky turned from blue to violet, fighting against his growing drowsiness. Sakura had put a sleeping jutsu on him as she did most nights; he didn't sleep soundly enough without it, out of habit from the old days when he'd had Shukaku's influence to fear. Normally he was grateful for the peace it gave him, but he wanted to be awake tonight. He was waiting.

"Naruto," he called to the darkening twilight.

The leaves rustled as though in reply, and then the jutsu took hold of him completely, and he slept.

* * *

A hand was shaking his shoulder gently, drawing him toward wakefulness. "Gaara. Gaara, wake up."

He opened his eyes. Naruto stood over him. The sky outside his window was completely dark, the room lit only by a sliver of moonlight.

"Naruto," he said slowly.

"Are you all right?" Naruto said worriedly, his voice a whisper. "Sorry to wake you, but I had a feeling like I should be here."

"I'm fine," he said groggily. "I was trying…I wanted you to come. I need you to…" Gaara reached out a hand. "Help me sit up."

Still looking concerned, Naruto put an arm underneath his shoulders and lifted him, settling him back against the pillows. "What is it? Do you need Sakura-chan? Should I—"

"No." He felt as though he were still half-asleep, as though he were dreaming. Everything was slow and dark, and he couldn't entirely think straight. "I need you to help me."

"What is it?" Naruto whispered again. "What do you need?"

He gestured vaguely in the direction of his legs. "The bandages. Help me…help me unwrap them. I want to look."

Naruto looked nervous. "Are you sure I shouldn't get Sakura-chan?"

"She'll be sleeping."

"Another medic, then—there's some on the night shift—"

"No. No. Not them. Just you."

Naruto hesitated. "All right," he whispered at last. "Tell me what to do."

"Just start at the top, there, where the…where the metal piece is." Gaara gritted his teeth as Naruto began. "Go slowly."

"Sorry," Naruto said anxiously. "Let me know if I hurt you, okay?"

It was a long and torturous process. Naruto was as gentle as he could be, but he didn't have the techniques to ease Gaara's pain every step of the way. His fingers curled hard into the sheets of his bed and he stared anywhere but at Naruto, trying not to gasp when the last of the bandages were pulled away.

Naruto took a breath and slid back. "What do they look like?" Gaara whispered, staring at a point somewhere above Naruto's head.

"They're…kind of bad." Naruto hesitated. "I think you should see them for yourself."

He let his gaze wander slowly downward to the red, mangled flesh that lay uselessly atop the sheets, where the skin was raw and still oozing in some places, and the bones were twisted in shapes that never should have been, and there was white standing out amid blood and angry purple bruising on his right knee. The bandages lying beneath them were stained red with blood and yellow with pus, and if the wounds weren't getting worse, they were not getting better either. There was no setting to be done, no closing, no healing; his legs were splintered apart like broken toys, and ever would be unless painstakingly put back together.

Gaara retched dryly, bending double and gulping in air, silently at first, then harsher, louder, gasping brokenly at the pain that slowly overtook him and flared into raw agony.

"Gaara!" Naruto sounded panicked. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he panted, groping blindly with one hand until Naruto's closed around his. "Hurts."

"Do you—I can get Sakura—"

"No! No! I have to—I have to feel this." He retched again and almost cried out, gritting his teeth to stop himself, and he gripped Naruto's hand and Naruto held his so hard the bones creaked. "These are my legs," he gasped out, rocking back and forth. "These are mine."

* * *

To be continued.


	3. Part III

_AN: This is Part III, one chapter left. Riana1, thanks for your review. I love the way you describe Gaara—"distance he demands with the sincerity he needs." Brilliant._

* * *

Part III

"I've set the surgery date a week from tomorrow," the Hokage informed Gaara. "Sorry it can't be sooner, but that's my next full day off."

Gaara nodded. They were outside, at the kunoichi training field, where the antics of the female shinobi made him keen to be free of the wheelchair. "I understand."

"The recovery time, assuming everything goes well, should be six months to a year. I'd want to keep you in our hospital for at least a month post-surgery, at which point it should be safe to move you to Suna's hospital, where you should remain for another month. You'll need daily therapy, of course, and if you don't have a specialist in Suna I'll send one back with you." Tsunade surveyed him, arms crossed over her chest. "I want us to be clear. This means no combat, no missions, no risk-taking. Not for at least half a year."

Gaara nodded again. It would be worth it to be able to stand on his own feet again.

Tsunade scowled at Naruto. "And I don't want to hear about _you_ pretending that you're qualified to perform the tasks of a medic ever again," she told him. "You could have exposed him to infection. We're very lucky he's not a lot worse off."

"It's a hospital, old lady!" Naruto complained. "There's medical-nins everywhere!"

Tsunade's eyebrows drew together. "Regardless—"

"I asked him to," Gaara said.

His assembled company—Tsunade, Sakura, and Naruto—all looked at him.

"I'd expect better judgment from you, at least." Tsunade shook her head, a slight smile lingering around her mouth. "Promise me you'll at least _notify_ a medical-nin the next time you decide you have to see your legs in the middle of the night. And _don't_ let Naruto bandage you." She cast a displeased look at his legs, which she had re-bandaged herself. "That reminds me, Naruto, Shikamaru wants to see you. He has an assignment for you."

Naruto crossed his arms over his chest and scowled at his Hokage. "It's not going to keep me out of the village during Gaara's surgery, is it?"

"Unfortunately, no," Tsunade growled.

"Good! Good!" Naruto grinned at Gaara. "I'll see you later, then."

He disappeared in a cloud of white smoke, and Tsunade sighed and clapped Gaara on the shoulder. "I'd better be off as well. Take care of yourself. I'll see you next week." She disappeared much the way Naruto had, leaving him and Sakura alone by the fence ringing the kunoichi training ground.

"She's so familiar," Gaara said.

Sakura looked at him. "Hm?"

"Your Hokage. The way she speaks to you and Naruto...she isn't formal at all." He watched the line of wooden dummies on the field and the women attacking them. The black-haired kunoichi was back among them. "I don't know how to do that."

"Practice might help," Sakura suggested gently.

He considered that. "How do you begin?"

Sakura rubbed the back of her head, thinking. "I don't know," she admitted at last. "Maybe there's really no right way…maybe you just have to leap into it."

"That seems dangerous," he said after a pause.

"I guess it is," Sakura agreed softly.

Gaara watched the kunoichi.

"That woman," he said slowly, his eyes on the black-haired shinobi. "She keeps looking at me likes she knows me."

As though she had heard him, the kunoichi abruptly finished up her exercises. Scrubbing a sleeve across her sweaty forehead and retying her hair behind her forehead protector, she approached them slowly, her face set in an unreadable expression.

"Kazuki, right?" Sakura asked curiously when she stopped a few feet away from them.

"Yes," she answered shortly, her black eyes fixed on Gaara. He met her gaze impassively. Her face might be unreadable, but he thought he saw a spark of anger in her eyes. "You're the Kazekage, aren't you?"

He nodded, silent, waiting.

"Why are you here?" she demanded rudely. "You're not a Konoha nin. You're not even—"

"Hey, just a second," Sakura interrupted indignantly, stepping forward. "Konoha and Suna are allied, and anyway, what business is it of yours?"

Kazuki glared at her. "_Allied?_ Hokage-sama is crazy to make an alliance with him. He and his friends attacked our village, killed our shinobi—"

"That's enough," Sakura began angrily.

"Wait." Gaara looked at the girl, at her angry face and her snapping black eyes, and tried to remember if he had seen her before, or anyone who looked like her. If he had, he could not recall it. He had long ago stopped recalling the individual faces of his victims; they all blurred together, like one collective mask of horror and pain.

"I don't know you," he said quietly at last.

Kazuki spat at his feet. Sakura stepped forward, her face going dark with fury, but Kazuki gave her a swift, contemptuous look, turned around and walked away.

"Don't mind her," Sakura said tersely after several moments had passed, her hands unclenching and falling to her sides. "She's an Otoe. They're all like that."

"Otoe?"

"One of Konoha's ubiquitous clans." Sakura smiled, but her eyes remained troubled. "They're very protective of Konoha, and…well, let's just say we don't send them on any diplomatic missions. They hate outsiders. They've been very angry with Hokage-sama for all her work strengthening Konoha's alliances and making friends with our former enemies." Sakura's eyes darkened briefly at the mention of any offense to her beloved teacher. "Most of the family was killed off in wars and conflicts under the Third—I heard there are only Kazuki and a few older brothers left." She shrugged. "The brothers will marry and repopulate the clan soon enough, though. Then they can protest Hokage-sama's policies in greater numbers."

"I see." Gaara watched the faces of the kunoichi, looking for features he knew, trying to test his memory. No spark of recognition came to him. "Did any of her clan die when I…when Suna and Sound…"

"I don't know," Sakura said uncomfortably. "It was a long time ago. There were a lot of casualties."

Trying to dredge up their faces was like searching through a black well, a blank hole in his memory. There was little he remembered from that time other than pain, and rage, and Shukaku's voice. And Naruto, who had saved him.

"I shouldn't be here," he said at last.

"Yes, you should," Sakura said firmly. He looked at her, surprised by the strength in her voice. "There are some people who will always complain. But like I said, Konoha doesn't turn its back on its patients." She smiled at him. "Or its friends."

He watched the kunoichi again, wordless, not knowing how to respond to such generosity.

"Thank you," he said at last, feeling the words utterly inadequate for what he wanted to express.

"You're welcome."

* * *

They had left the calabash gourd in a corner of the hospital room, next to his bed, and he hadn't touched it since waking. The sand inside it remained immobile. He did not command it, and there was no enemy here to protect him from. Until the night he had looked at his legs and seen what had been done to them, he had barely even noticed it was there.

If he never touched it again, never used it, the chakra running through it would eventually fade and it would be nothing but ordinary sand, not impossible for him to manipulate, but much more difficult. He could not let that happen. He needed it now more than ever, now that he was immobile and helpless, his chakra greatly weakened from injury and unable to maintain his armor. He needed the calabash's sand, already enhanced with his chakra, to be his solid, impenetrable defense.

And it came from the desert, from the wild place where he had been born, a part of him as much as legs or hands. Gaara of the sand. He wondered where that notion had come from.

He barely needed to call it before the sand popped out the calabash's stopper and poured into the room in a hissing rush, a million tiny grains surrounding him like so many eager children. He let it play at creating mindless shapes and patterns, testing it with subtle movements and silent commands, finding it responsive to his smallest gestures and the thoughts he had only begun to have. _But you didn't protect me from this,_ he thought at it. _You didn't save my legs._

It cringed away from him as though scolded, fleeing back to the shelter of the calabash. "Stop," he said aloud. It obeyed, a long stream of sand quivering in midair between him and the gourd. He sighed and relinquished control, letting it ribbon around him tentatively again, wondering where this tendency to personify its actions had come from. It had only ever done as he wanted before. Maybe it still did. Or maybe it never had.

He reached into the ribbon and closed a hand around some of the sand, rubbing his fingers through it to feel the familiar texture, the dryness and warmth of it. It smelled of the desert, of wind, and as he breathed it in he felt something that was like pain or a pull in his chest: a longing for Sunagakure, for its burning days and cold nights and vicious storms. For the villagers who trusted him with their lives, for Baki's confidence in him, for his former student Matsuri, for Kankuro and Temari, his brother and sister. For home.

He let the sand sift through his fingers and join the rest, and watched as it wound its way back into the calabash. There was no need to test it. He knew that it would carry him.

* * *

The night before his surgery was filled with an electric tension that wasn't his. Sakura did not come. Gaara waited to know what was happening within Konoha's walls, watching the black sky outside his window and knowing that he was immobile and weakened, his defenses low, and nearly helpless. He did not like the feeling.

Naruto came, appearing in the window with the moon at his back and his eyes bright with tension and excitement. "We're under attack. It's a small group, Shikamaru thinks, but they blew up part of the south wall. Sakura's there already, to look after the injured."

Gaara felt his fingers tighten in the sheets, the instinct to fight in Konoha's defense nearly eclipsing the knowledge that he couldn't. They were allies, Konoha and Suna, he and Naruto. "I can't fight," he said, and his voice sounded peculiar to his own ears, as though tight with emotion.

"Don't worry," Naruto said, mistaking the emotion for fear. "They won't get near the hospital. We'll protect you."

He wanted to tell Naruto that he wasn't afraid for himself, that he never had been. That death was nothing, just another emptiness, but he understood now what Naruto had shown him—that he could protect people, that he _wanted_ to protect people, and that was worth dying for.

"Be careful," he said.

Naruto grinned, gave him the thumbs up, and was gone.

He called the sand out of the calabash, all of it, and halved the lot in two with a quick, curt gesture.

"Go with him," he said quietly to a half. "Protect him."

The sand streamed swiftly out the window and caught the light of the moon, a long, pale ribbon that soon disappeared into blackness. The rest wrapped itself around him as it had so many times around his victims, but it didn't tighten, didn't crush. Far more precise than any human medic could ever be, it lifted him and righted him on the floor, without allowing the slightest weight on his mangled legs. He let himself pretend for a moment, let himself believe the illusion that he was standing on his own two feet as he looked out the window, searching for tongues of flame that might indicate the wreckage of the wall or shadows of Konoha nin rushing to protect their own. Soon. Soon, and he would not only stand, he would fight again.

Kazuki was at his window.

It happened so quickly that his control over the sand nearly slipped. She was there, crouching on the windowsill, the black-haired kunoichi with her eyes full of hate and a knife in her hand.

_Ah,_ he thought.

She lunged at him and wrapped him in a peculiar embrace, her arm around his waist and her hand gripping the back of his white hospital yukata, her face pressed into his shoulder like a shy maiden's. "For my brothers," she whispered against him, and she pushed her fist into his stomach.

There was no pain. Only the overwhelming sense of invasion, of _wrongness,_ that made the sand—as much as wasn't needed to hold him upright—swarm around her and yank her away from him. He looked down and all he saw was the hilt, the black lacquered hilt that pressed into the side of his belly just below his ribcage, and the blood that flowed freely red over white cloth.

He felt cold. He wanted Suna, wanted its ferocious heat, and reached a hand to her as though beseeching. The sand swam over her skin.

"_Sabaku…no…sousou."_

The familiar words pushed past his lips as though by their own volition. He wanted to live. He was going to die, again, and he wanted to live. Kazuki's black eyes stared into his. She made no sound.

"Forgive me," he said, and closed his hand into a fist.

The sand compacted in a crunch of breaking bone. Her eyes bulged, the whites pooling red from burst capillaries. Blood bubbled from her mouth. She coughed up her life's fluid, spat it from her mouth and died.

Gaara wrapped his hand around the knife beneath his ribs and pulled it out. With it went the last of his control over the sand and he collapsed to the floor, feeling nothing, pain neither from his legs nor from the gaping wound in his stomach. Only cold. He shuddered and gasped for his last few breaths, and then Naruto was there. He sensed him more than he saw him, his vision already growing dark. Naruto's hands seized his shoulders and shook them roughly.

"Open your eyes! Open your eyes, Gaara, don't you _dare_ die! _Sakura!"_

"I'm here!" Another presence; more warmth at his side, and then coolness on his abdomen. "It's deep. He needs surgery, fast." She was so calm, so gentle, compared to Naruto. "Tsunade's coming, Gaara."

Her palms pressed down hard on his belly and vicious pain drove back the darkness. He gasped and fought to buck off the pressure. Naruto's arms wrapped around his shoulders, holding him still, and Sakura pressed harder. Not gentle at all.

"There's so much—can't you stop it?"

"No. Not till Tsunade—I can try to slow it, at least. Do what you can to keep him awake."

Pressure. Naruto's arms, Sakura's hands. He was still so cold. The pain was fading again.

"Wake up, you bastard! I will _kill_ you if you die!"

"Stay with us, just a little longer. You're going to live."

Their faces swam in and out of his vision. He tried to tell them that he was all right, that he barely even hurt anymore. That he wished he could see Suna one more time, and speak with his siblings, and sit in council with Naruto when he became Hokage (because he would, he knew it as much as he knew anything), but that the life he'd managed to salvage out of horror and pain was enough.

"Don't try to talk, Gaara, just listen to us. You're going to be fine, you hear me? Tsunade's almost here. _Hold_ him, Naruto!"

"I am!"

"Harder! Hold him as tight as you can. Don't you let him go, Naruto. Don't you dare let him go."

* * *

To be continued.


	4. Part IV

_AN: Last chapter here. Thank you all for reading and for the reviews, they are very much appreciated._

* * *

Part IV

The sound of the rusted fan revolving overhead was what brought him to. There was a warm breeze on his face and the scent of summer, of Konoha, filled his nostrils. Gaara opened his eyes.

Naruto and Sakura sat beside him, one on either side of his bed, beaming at him.

"You all right?" Naruto demanded cheerfully as Sakura asked, "How do you feel?"

He didn't know the answer to either question. Everything felt numb. He looked down the length of his body and saw a white sheet covering him, and a fresh, clean yukata. He knew that his torso was wound with bandages, and his legs as well, so much of them that they looked like twin bulky cylinders under the sheets. He knew it, but felt none of it.

He looked at them again, at their faces—Sakura's, gently smiling, and Naruto's, filled with joy—and felt nothing at all.

"What happened?"

"It was the Otoe clan," Sakura said. Both of their expressions darkened, but only briefly, as though no cloud could shadow for long the light in their faces. "_They_ attacked the wall. The brothers. So that Kazuki could come here and—and try to murder you."

He didn't understand. "They—attacked you? To kill me?"

Sakura nodded. "It was a diversion."

"Our own village!" Gaara could see it in Naruto's eyes—he would carry that betrayal with him for a long time. "Just to kill you!"

"They said it was to avenge their family," Sakura explained gently. "They said you killed two of the brothers during the Chuunin Exam."

"It's unforgivable," Naruto growled. "You're _injured!_ You're in a _hospital!"_

"Tsunade-sama says the survivors will be jailed for life, if not executed."

"I'll kill them myself if old lady Tsunade doesn't!"

"I killed Kazuki," Gaara said.

Naruto and Sakura both looked at him.

"We saw her," Sakura said. "You had to. It was self-defense."

"She had already stabbed me," he said.

Silence hung thickly in the air between them. He saw Naruto and Sakura exchange a troubled glance, and he didn't care what it was about, what they were thinking. There was nothing in him.

"Tsunade-sama did the surgery, Gaara," Sakura said quietly after a moment or two.

At first he didn't understand. He looked at her as he realized what she meant.

"My legs?"

"Yes." Sakura's smile was back in place now. "She says you'll walk again."

"It's great, isn't it?" Naruto burst out enthusiastically. "She even had Sakura help her!"

Sakura nodded self-consciously, still smiling. "My first major surgery."

"She would have helped with your belly-cut too, but old lady Tsunade made her sleep."

"I was worn out from fighting and healing."

"At least _you_ didn't get knocked in the head."

"That was your own stupid fault, Naruto."

"Hey! I almost got stabbed too, you know! One of them came at me with a knife while my head was still fuzzy, but for some reason all this sand appeared and stopped him." Naruto grinned broadly.

He didn't understand why they looked so pleased, so happy. The emptiness stretched on and on inside him. He stood at the very edge of the abyss, and they smiled at him, holding him fast.

"You—" His voice caught, and he struggled to speak, struggled to sit up, Sakura immediately leaning forward to support his shoulders. "You saved my life." He looked at Naruto and tried to breathe through the tightness in his chest, the slight roaring in his ears. "Again. This is—the third time."

Naruto and Sakura looked at one another again, briefly. "Old lady Tsunade saved you," Naruto said. "We just kept you awake till she came, that's all."

He shook his head violently, needing to explain, needing to say what was in him, though he hardly knew what it was. "I was going to die. I was—and you—I killed her. I didn't have to. She already killed me. I was going to die. It was enough. And you—again—after everything—"

Naruto hit him. It was barely a punch, but enough to make his jaw ache and shock him into silence. Sakura flinched, but offered no reproach.

"She could have stabbed you again, you moron! She could have stayed and finished the job, or attacked Sakura-chan and me when we tried to help you! Yeah, you _were_ going to die! And if you try to tell me you _deserved_ it, I'm gonna knock your stupid brains out!"

Gaara said nothing. Naruto glared at him as though daring him to speak.

"You wanted to live, didn't you?" Sakura asked softly. "Or you really would have died. You were hanging on to life."

Yes. He had wanted to live. The knowledge poured into him, filling the void that threatened to swallow him whole. It was all he could do just to breathe.

"Why do you keep doing this?" he said quietly at last, his voice no longer strangled, composed again. "When they took Shukaku…when my legs were crushed…and now this. Why are you there—always?"

Naruto looked at him as though the answer should have been obvious a thousand times over. "We're friends, aren't we?"

Friends.

Yes—he and Naruto were friends. He had that now. He had a home he wanted to return to, a family he wanted to see—and friends. Those were things worth dying for.

They were also worth living for.

"Thank you," he said at last, his voice far less steady than he would have preferred it. He looked at Sakura. "Both of you."

He couldn't speak anymore, because the numbness was leaving him; the pain of his healing legs and stomach wound were growing, and he could only lay back and sweat, staring at the ceiling, until the pain ran its course. Naruto and Sakura remained beside him in silence, waiting it out with him.

* * *

He went to see Kazuki as soon as he was well enough to go outside. She was buried in an unmarked grave on the outskirts of the village, the freshly turned earth the only sign that remained of her passage. The attack had been small in scale, hers the only death, his the only major injury, but her name was to go unwritten, and soon forgotten. She would have no visitors or mourners to her gravesite; even Sakura demurred to take him any farther than he could wheel himself. Her brothers in the attack—whether they were executed tomorrow or died after a lifetime in prison—would receive the same treatment.

He did not reproach Konoha for it. He, too, would have stricken the names of anyone who attacked his own people from his village's memory, whatever their reasons.

He stared at the earth beneath which Kazuki lay, whose life he had traded for his own, who would have traded his life for the vengeance of two victims he could not remember.

He would answer to her and her brothers in the afterlife. And he would not forget her face.

* * *

When they came in a month to bring him home, neither Kankuro nor Temari were particularly surprised to find that Gaara was using crutches whenever he could, in defiance of Tsunade's strictest orders. He had agreed to confine himself to a wheelchair for the journey, and go straight to Sunagakure's hospital for a month-long stay, but to continue resting all the time, to not test his own limits—that much he refused. He would stand on his own feet again, soon, without any support at all.

"Just like Lee," Tsunade had commented in apparent disgust the first time she caught him at it, leaving Gaara wondering if he should be pleased or offended to be compared to that particular specimen of Konoha tenacity.

His siblings' greetings were congruous. Kankuro punched his shoulder lightly. Temari tentatively rested her hand on the other. He briefly covered her fingers with his, and the burst of sudden happiness in her face nearly made him smile.

Sakura said goodbye at the hospital, and gave him a bottle of pain medication for the journey, which he knew he wouldn't use. Naruto walked with them to the village gate. It was a clear day, the sky endlessly blue and the sun warm, and the wind smelled of Konoha's trees and greenery. The colors—green leaves and blue sky, the yellow wall, the orange roofs, the green-painted gates and their bright red kanji—all seemed impossibly vivid after the sterile whiteness of the hospital. He breathed the warm air deeply, as though to drink the village in, to keep it alive in his memories.

"Well," Naruto said somewhat awkwardly, once Temari and Kankuro had moved out of earshot and they were left facing one another.

Gaara took a breath. "Come to Suna." The simple words were a struggle, a war that he made himself win. Naruto blinked at him. He felt his fingers curl into the arms of the wheelchair, and forced them to relax. "When you can."

Naruto grinned. It was so easy for him, so natural. "I'll be there."

There was no need to say goodbye after that. Nor did he need to look back, as he wheeled away from Konoha between his brother and sister, to know that Naruto would be watching long after they were completely gone from sight. They would see each other again, soon. That was enough.

The trees rustled as a wind came from somewhere in the west, perhaps as far away as Sunagakure. Gaara raised his face into it, and imagined he could smell the desert.


End file.
